Opinion: The Reason Why Things Are The Way They Are

I've tried over the last few weeks to blog about the developments that have taken place since the grand juries in Ferguson and New York decided not to indict the officers involved in those shootings. I've started maybe seven different posts trying to express my feelings and with each attempt, there was a new incident to weigh in on. From Akai Gurley's shooting in Brooklyn, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, OH and John Crawford in Beavercreek, OH, amongst others that have gone unreported or underreported, there has been a biting rhetoric on both sides of the issue. But nothing has been more extreme than the views surrounding the Eric Garner situation in New York. While the Ferguson protests had gotten out of hand early with looting, riots, fire and violent clashes with police, the fallout from the grand jury deciding to not indict Daniel Pantaleo has crossed political lines as well as racial lines. When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that he had sympathy for those protesting the grand jury decision, many police officers felt that the mayor was taking a stand against them. One of de Blasio's election campaign initiatives that he ran on was police reform. The police union felt that if the mayor had sympathy for those who were looked upon as having anti-police views, then the NYPD doesn't have the support of the mayor.


When 2 officers were killed over this past weekend in what is being labeled as a 'revenge killing' for Eric Garner, the discontent between the police department and the mayor culminated in several uniformed officers turning their backs on de Blasio and police commissioner Bill Bratton when they entered a press conference related to the shooting. Police across the nation are on high alert now that someone has successfully murdered two police officers (and subsequently themselves) and this will only bring about more tension between local law and the communities like Ferguson and New York City when both citizens and police officers now have a legitimate reason to be fearful for their lives.


Even though racism plays a HUGE part in these situations (and admitting that, really, is as important as acknowledging that police have a very difficult job and are not all bad), we also have to realize the culture that both police and minorities have bred in their respective communities regarding each other. In the inner cities, crime is very high. That has less to do with the race of people there than it has to do with how those people are treated as a whole because of their race. In Black and Hispanic communities in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, most of these inner city citizens live in housing projects where hundreds and thousands of people occupy a very small space. Most of these communities are set up where the children never leave that radius. They go to school in the same general area, their parents shop and may even work in that area. These projects were set up so that the people who lived their never had to leave (ironically, in many cases, they weren't originally built for Blacks but for immigrant families like the Italians, Polish and other European immigrants. History shows that crime in these areas were always high, even when white immigrants occupied the slums in New York and Chicago because of the living conditions and the apparent lack of concern by local government and police for those areas. Organized crime has their roots in the early immigrant slums, i.e, the reference book and related movie 'Gangs of New York'. When these families were able to make a way for themselves and move out to neighboring areas, working class Black families moved into these areas and subsequently, the cities built the housing projects to contain the large number of occupants in a such a small radius). Generations of families live in these areas, so while some from more affluent areas travel across town or across the country to visit relatives, the families living in these projects may never even have to go outside of their building to go see their grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. I've grown up with people who said they never left their general project neighborhoods until they went to high school. Some have never left until they got their first job. Others, due to their economic situation, never leave at all, if not for an extenuating circumstance. So when you hear people like former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani respond to questions about the extreme police presence in Black communities by saying "white officers wouldn't be there if weren't killing each other", you begin to understand what I mean by the "culture" that is bred amongst police officers in cities and environments such as the housing projects or low income neighborhoods in New York City. That breeds a counter culture in the Black communities where the threat of police brutality or over policing (stop and frisk) fosters distrust from innocents citizens. When you have those with guns in positions of authority over those who have real life examples to look at that show them they are literally under attack in some cases, a violent reaction is all but inevitable. In fact, it will definitely happen. At this point, no one on either side of the issue trusts the other. But this is not a justification for any violence against police.


Side Note: History shows that crime in these areas were always high, even when white immigrants occupied the slums in New York and Chicago because of the living conditions and the apparent lack of concern by local government for those areas. Organized crime has their roots in the early immigrant slums, i.e, the reference book and related movie 'Gangs of New York'.


What is also at the root of the issue is the media. Yes, they have to report what's going on. With the 24 hour news cycle, seeing violent images or hearing of these incidents and reading minute by minute updates online, one can easily and quickly become discontented. When you have reports that lean heavily to one side of the issue, you have pundits and commentators showing extreme bias and passion to appeal to their viewers. When you have people who only watch FoxNews or only watch msnbc, only watch Politics Nation with Al Sharpton and/ or Melissa Harris-Perry's Show, only watch Joe Scarborough's Show Morning Joe, and don't care to see or hear any other views on certain subject, they're inundated with personal views that they agree with. So if you hear Al Sharpton railing against the NYPD but you don't hear someone who says "well, while their has been wrongdoing and corruption in the department for decades, we have to continue to realize that the department as a whole does want to protect and serve", then an opinion against the police is self fostered and that could permeate to others in the community. On the flip side, if you are constantly emboldened by opinions that all Black people are on welfare and all they do is kill each other and now they're attacking police and never see and hear of examples of the many minority families who are working class and doing very well and have never been subject to any type of violence, then your opinion of Black people and minorities would be similar to what you allow yourself to be exposed to on the news or wherever. So while the news media does have a responsibility to report the news fair and balanced, we have a responsibility to be reasonable and hold ourselves accountable to knowing that every racial group, political organization, law enforcement agency, etc., has good and bad apples, good and bad policies and truths and untruths. Reality, in some of those cases, may often match perception and we have to admit to that, too.


But the real problem is us, as a whole, as humans. Not enough of us care. When George Zimmerman was not held responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin, I personally believe it re-ignited a precedent in the minds of those citizens that don't hold human life in high regard. George Zimmerman was guilty on many accounts and the law protected him instead of the young life he extinguished. And while this was not the first time it happened in recent years, it opened up a new discussion on race in this country, while we have Black president in office. When Obama identified with Trayvon Martin and his family, it set events into motion that changed how people expressed their negative views on race. When Michael Dunn shot and killed Jordan Davis over loud music, although he was convicted and sentenced to 90+ years in jail, you have to wonder if he ever thought he'd be held accountable for shooting some Black kid. The same goes for Darren Wilson and Dan Pantaleo. The officers who shot Tamir Rice and John Crawford reacted to the descriptions of the individuals that posed a supposed threat. With the cases that were in the news, I'm sure those officers thought, "shoot first, ask questions last". Rice was shot two seconds after police arrived on the scene, apparently without word from the dispatcher that the 12 year old was holding what was "probably a fake" gun. Crawford was shot when someone called 911 and told the dispatcher that a man was waving a gun in the store. Video surveillance shows that Crawford never interacted with anyone as he walked through the aisles with the toy rifle. When it was found out that the gun was just a toy, officers interrogated his girlfriend aggressively, trying to get her to tell them if she saw Crawford walk into the store with the gun, even threatening her with arrest. All of this in an effort to somehow justify the shooting.


What gets me in all of this is how those who support Brown, Garner, Martin and all those countless other who've been killed unjustly are looked at as if all of a sudden, they are anti-police. Like Black people have just started experiencing these things. Three St. Louis Rams players who made the "Hands Up! Don't Shoot!" gesture in what they said was support of the families in Ferguson were vilified by local police and called irresponsible. When Derrick Rose wore his "I Can't Breathe" shirt during warm ups that sparked others around the league, including LeBron James, to do the same, a lot of people thought that was inappropriate. They felt like the protests were inappropriate. But when has standing up for what you believe in, especially when it comes to injustice, ever really been appropriate? People who protest are doing so because the views that they believe in are not popular views. To protest for a cause is a right that everyone has. Police brutality is obviously a real issue, otherwise politicians and lawmakers wouldn't be pushing for reform (like they have been my entire life). Whenever an unarmed man is killed by another person, white or Black, police officer or everyday citizen, there is going to be outrage as long as it is an unjustified killing. No one is siding with the young man, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who killed officers Wenjian Liu and Rafeal Ramos as they sat in their patrol car. It was an unjustified killing, plain and simple. Anyone that thinks differently is an extremist and really needs to re-examine their views. The problem lies when things aren't as cut and dry as this particular incident is and when there is a justifiable difference of opinion, those who hold that opinion are vilified and viewed as extremist as Brinsley.


When Black people in this country had to fight for the right to live as average citizens, enough people, white and Black cared enough to make a difference. When Black kids had to endure dogs and fire hoses being turned on them just because they wanted to go to school and get as good of an education as their white counterparts, enough people, Black and white, cared enough to make a difference. Today, though, that care from enough of us, Black and white, is gone. Too many of us as Black people won't support hot button issues, won't speak out against those issues, won't participate in protests because of what we feel like might happen to us if we did. I get that, to a certain degree. But look at the things some of us are willing to support. One might look at me and say that I have nothing to lose because I just write a blog that maybe only a handful of people read. Some may feel I don't have interests that might be affected by my opinion on certain things. To that I say regardless of my ambitions, I will gladly risk all of them standing up for what I think is right. And while there are others who have public careers to think about or public endeavours that they don't want to compromise, I say think about your influence in your community and in your circle. If you believe that injustices are occurring, speak up on your feelings. People are listening and they will move with you. Nothing one can attain is worth sitting back while the world crumbles around us.


On the other hand, too many white people are tired of what they call Black people playing the race card. A lot of the negative expressions we hear on race by some white people are based on their feelings that our President is destroying America. They see him as emboldening minorities, supporting undocumented immigrants and changing a culture that they have lived by through the generations of their family. They feel exactly how Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Don Imus and countless others feel about Blacks and all other non-whites in this country. To see Black people protesting unjustified police shootings of Black children doesn't represent tragedy to them. They see it as people finding an excuse to riot and to loot and steal. They're not even looking at the situation because it's irrelevant to them. They just see ignorant Black people acting up.


All of this contributes to what we see happening around us today. All of us need to see the need to make changes in how we perceive things and one another. Until we can do that, things will get worse.